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Grammar Expert Plus includes four tools to help improve your writing:
- A grammar checker to help you avoid embarrassing mistakes
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A spelling checker to make your spelling letter perfect
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Help on English grammar, including rules, guidelines, and advice on grammar, punctuation, and effective writing
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A thesaurus to quickly and conveniently look up synonyms and antonyms
The English language is a mass of complex and confusing rules and words that look and sound similar but have different meanings. Even professional writers and English teachers have trouble keeping the rules straight. Grammar Expert Plus helps sort out this mess by checking your writing for thousands of common grammatical errors:
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Syntax errors:
Errors in the order or arrangement of words, such as writing I spoken to her yesterday instead of I spoke or I had spoken.
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Misused words:
Using a word incorrectly, usually as a result of confusing it with another word, such as I have taken her advise instead of I have taken her advice, Its a beautiful day instead of It’s a beautiful day, and You’re forms are being mailed separately instead of Your forms are being mailed separately.
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Number agreement:
Conflicts between a modifier and the noun it modifies, such as Several car are illegally parked instead of Several cars are illegally parked.
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Subject–verb agreement:
Conflicts between the plurality of a verb and the subject it relates to, such as He don’t answer his phone instead of He doesn’t answer his phone and The student who write the best story will win a prize instead of The student who writes the best story will win a prize.
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Possessive errors:
Incorrect possessive forms, such as any one’s else instead of any one else’s and Mens’s coats are half price this week instead of Men’s coats are half price this week.
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Capitalization errors:
Starting a sentence with a lower–case letter, or failing to capitalize a personal title, such as writing dr. Brown instead of Dr. Brown.
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Abbreviation form errors:
Constructing abbreviations incorrectly, such as writing eg. instead of e.g., or 9:00 am instead of 9:00 a.m.
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Number form errors:
Using digits for small numbers (We hired 4 new employees last month instead of We hired four new employees last month).
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Unbalanced punctuation:
Extra or missing parentheses (“( and ”)”) or quotation marks.
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Classified singulars:
Describing a single object as a class of objects, such as This is the sort of a car I want to buy instead of This is the sort of car I want to buy.
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Double comparisons:
Using a comparative modifier with an adjective or adverb which is itself comparative, such as more quicker or most strongest.
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Sentence fragments:
Sentences missing predicates, such as The man who I or The boy from the school.
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Passive sentences:
Sentences where the subject follows the object, as in The report was filed by the committee instead of The committee filed the report.
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Incorrect prepositions:
This color is the opposite to that one instead of This color is the opposite of that one.
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Pronoun case errors:
Use of nominative–case pronouns where objective case is required, as in She mailed the package to John and I instead of She mailed the package to John and me.
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Double negatives:
Needlessly or incorrectly negating a negative, such as not uncommon instead of common or We don’t have no insurance forms instead of We don’t have any insurance forms.
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Wordy phrases:
Verbose phrases that can be rewritten more succinctly, such as We can make adjustments to the new policy if necessary instead of We can adjust the new policy if necessary or It goes without saying that production quality must be improved instead of Clearly, production quality must be improved.
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Redundant phrases:
Phrases where the meaning of one word implies the meaning of another, such as connect up instead of just connect or large in size instead of just large.
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Stilted words:
“Fifty cent” words that can be rewritten for clarity, such as cognizant instead of aware and ostensible instead of apparent.
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Awkward usage:
Words and phrases that are too informal or do not read well, such as The new photocopier is way faster instead of The new photocopier is much faster, or That there file has to go back to Personnel instead of That file has to go back to personnel.
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Vague modifiers:
Inaccurate or meaningless modifiers, such as sort of difficult. These can be rewritten for greater clarity and descriptiveness.
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Jargon:
Technical terms used in a non–technical context, such as using parameters instead of limits or time frame instead of duration.
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Clichés:
Overused phrases that can be rewritten more concisely, such as Reorganizing the office will be easier said than done instead of Reorganizing the office will be difficult.
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Gender–specific terms:
Terms that may imply gender bias, such as chairman instead of chair or chairperson and actress instead of actor.
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Confusing terms:
Terms that may have multiple common meanings, such as bimonthly (which can mean “once every two months” or “twice per month”), or whose form suggests a different meaning, such as inflammable (which means “burns easily” but many people interpret to mean “flame resistant”).
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Word–form errors:
Brother–in–laws instead of Brothers–in–law, light headed instead of light–headed, or news paper instead of newspaper.
Grammar Expert Plus is ideal for anyone who writes: students, business people, and professional and casual writers. Grammar Expert Plus helps improve the quality of your writing: business and school reports, resumes, articles, stories, manuals, e–mail, newsgroup postings, blogs, business correspondence and personal letters. Grammar Expert Plus looks for grammatical problems, describes the problem for you in easy–to–understand terms, and offers suggestions for improvement.
Grammar Expert Plus displays several useful statistics to help you tune your writing for a particular set of readers:
- Word and sentence counts
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Average word and sentence length
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Readability grade
Grammar Expert Plus’s built–in book–length grammar reference contains hundreds of examples showing the correct way to write, plus pitfalls to avoid. It includes chapters on sentence structure, parts of speech, mechanics of writing, punctuation, effective writing, plus a guide to frequently confused words explaining the meanings of over 160 words even professional writers have trouble keeping straight.
Grammar Expert Plus comes with a spelling checker including a 100,000–word American English dictionary. You can add words to personal user dictionaries, and Grammar Expert Plus can read and update user dictionaries created by other applications such as Microsoft Word. The spelling checker can also auto–correct common misspellings — for example, it can replace recieve with receive.
Grammar Expert Plus’s thesaurus contains over 36,000 unique key words in 5900 categories. Word categories are divided into parts of speech (adjectives, adverbs, singular nouns, plural nouns, and verbs in first–person singular, third–person singular, past tense, and present–participle forms).
Grammar Expert Plus can check text you have typed, text and rich–text documents, and the Windows clipboard. You can install Grammar Expert Plus as an icon in the system tray, next to the clock on the task bar, where it is always accessible. Grammar Expert Plus is ideal for checking text you enter in other applications that lack grammar and spelling checkers.
A complete list of features and side-by-side comparisons are available on the
Writing Enhancement Software Review HomePage.
©2008 TopTenREVIEWS, Inc.